The entire movie, hell the entire franchise, supports Hiccup’s side of the argument. Grimmel is proven wrong at nearly every turn, so… why is he treated as “right”?
I can’t think of a single reason that the dragons have to separate, because the movie nearly goes out of its way to show how good Berk is at defending their dragons.
Let alone that Hiccup is not doing anything to make the world better? I, with all my heart and soul, hate the phrase “The world is not ready, yet”
Congrats for pointing the obvious Sherlock, how you think we can have the world be ready if we DON’T make it be ready?
Is fucking hilarious because he should know this already; before defeating the Red Death, the village wasn’t near as ready to accept the dragons, and I don’t need the series to think just because that happened things would be perfect, because they hated dragons for so long. But you can make things different, to change it.
And you NEED to do that change. Is one of the reasons I hate the movie; this idea that you should wait things to be better.
You shouldn’t, nothing happens just because; I’m queer, and if I can say that here without being afraid of being beaten to a pulp, is because people worked their asses for it. The work is not done, perhaps never be, but damn if is not better, and that is because people FOUGHT FOR IT.
The world would never be ready for dragons, because nobody is making it be ready for them
I love this franchise. As a kid, I read Cressida Cowell’s books, and while they bear little resemblance to the film series, I loved them and I loved the first HTTYD movie. I was a little reluctant to watch it at first, since it’s so unlike the books, but Toothless won me over.
I adore Toothless. I love him, and all dragons, so much that my NZSL (sign language) name given to me by my Deaf friends is the sign for Dragon. There was a little part of me that was sad that Toothless, in a sense, lost his freedom and lost the ability to be a wild animal in the first movie. He chose his life voluntarily, in the end, but it’s still enjoyable to see him get to go off to the Hidden World with his lovely glittery wife and raise a family and just do his own thing for a while. Toothless isn’t a pet, he’s a friend. Hiccup respects that.
As much as I enjoyed watching Riders of Berk and Defenders of Berk and Race to the Edge and all that, and the second movie, it was pretty evident that Hiccup was hit with wave after wave after wave of opposition (read: all out war). His teen and young adult years were spent risking his life, his dragons life, his friends lives, his entire villages lives, repeatedly. And they pulled it off. Hiccup is a smart, compassionate leader and pretty damn good at strategy, but Berk is one island.
They didn’t seem to be awfully effective at spreading their idealogies about people and dragons. After about ten years, which other countries/islands came to their aid, to defend dragons?
NONE. ZERO. They were still in this alone, their ideas hadn’t spread far, and as far as other nations were concerned, dragons were still bad.
And let’s be honest? Dragons are fucking huge. They probably stink like carrion and fish. They’re destructive. It’s like living with fire-breathing horse-sized dogs, but worse. Dragons are cool, but living with them is not easy and it’s no coincidence that the Vikings, the first to do so successfully, are an incredibly resilient, stubborn and strong people.
The kind of radical societal change that would need to take place to make global dragon-human peace is clearly going to take a long time, and it’s no use if a) the dragons are dead and b) their biggest advocates are too.
It’s been a pretty close call for Berk and the dragons, more than once. Toothless is literally supposed to be the last of his kind. How many times has he nearly died in this franchise! How about Hiccup, or Astrid, or literally any main character you pick?
Realistically (and yes, we’re talking about a movie here) realistically there would have been casualties of both dragons and humans on both sides. The losses would have been terrible. How many times had Berk been destroyed, again? They literally had to move islands.
So actually, I don’t think it’s so bad that the dragons head off to the Hidden World. It’s not just a hole in the ground: it’s dragon paradise, where they get to be left the FUCK alone. And meanwhile, Hiccup and his entire village can rebuild and raise kids and not have year after year after year of raids and attacks and, you know, war.
I think there’s no way the dragons will stay in the Hidden World forever. I think Toothless’s children will keep wanting to visit. Toothless and Hiccup will always be friends, and if Hiccup was ever in need I have no doubt that Toothless would be there in a heartbeat. I think the world will change, but it will take decades, even lifetimes to achieve peace between two sentient, completely different creatures.
In the meantime, it’s okay for them to rest. Let them be, let them multiply in the Hidden World, in a safe space where they aren’t threatened by war.
Let the people of Berk rest, and think, and try to come up with ways to change the world. Honestly? It’s pretty hard to come up with good ideas about spreading new idealogies when you’re actively fighting for your life. It’s traumatic as fuck doing that all the time, and they don’t have to do it all the time.
To cut a long explanation short: bloody revolution and fighting are sometimes necessary, but long term they’re very unsustainable. You’re going to end up with a fuckton of dead bodies, and you need periods of peace to mourn the dead and recover and recharge enough to carry on. Wars are fought in a series of battles. You can lose one, or retreat, and still win the war. In fact, sometimes it’s necessary to see that you need to retreat, sometimes for quite a bit, or you’ll lose every one of your soldiers, and with them, everything you started fighting for in the first place.
We do have to make the world ready but keep in mind: IT’S THE FUCKING WORLD.
If your ideas haven’t gained any traction, if after years of trying you have no allies, if your enemies are still after you and hate you enough to keep trying after a year of no success, if your village has been repeatedly destroyed and your childhood prettymuch replaced with military drills….
After a decade, it might just be a good idea
to stop for a little bit, and think about a change of tactics. Because otherwise, eventually you’ll make the wrong call, and you’re going to die, and so are all your friends.
If the dragons and the people of Berk are safe, for now, even if they have to be apart, it’s still better than being dead and losing the entire war.
The world isn’t ready yet, and neither are they. That’s okay. It sucks, but it’s certainly not defeat.
Okay, I’mma stop you right there, because the TV series’ aren’t canon to the movie. Dean’s weirdly adamant on this point. And really, it’s probably a good thing they aren’t, because hoo boy does the series shoot THW in the foot. Yes, it adds additional threats against the Berkians, but also allies, people changing their minds, dragons firmly entrenched into their ecosystem, cultures totally separate from the Berkians whose entire way of life hinges on the dragons. So yeah, let’s separate the series from the pile, because it’s a whole different slew of arguments.
So…no. Berk spent six years keeping to itself, maybe trying to reach out to another island once in a while, and then Drago happens, and everything gets serious really fast. And Hiccup’s conclusion, at the end of this terrifying clash that costs him his father, is that they’re going to change the world bit by bit and be the voice of peace.
And a year on? We see that he’s made progress to doing that.
Berk’s got so many dragons on their side, it’s becoming a problem. They’re not a patchy little fighting force anymore, but a force to be reckoned with. Drago’s forces are headless, run by buffoons who, again, have made no progress. Grimmel, again, is very concerned about Hiccup’s ideology spreading and tells him so, why do you people write me essays and ignore that one very crucial fact?
And again, the movie doesn’t end with a war on the horizon. Drago was the war, the warlords and Grimmel its last dying gasp, and Berk has won. It’s a time for knuckling in and spreading the word, because the fact is, the Berkians have at this point made more progress in their movement than a lot of real movements make in a lifetime.
And then, because Dean wants his ending, they give up.
So actually, I don’t think it’s so bad that the dragons head off to the Hidden World. It’s not just a hole in the ground: it’s dragon paradise, where they get to be left the FUCK alone.
There is absolutely nothing to suggest the Hidden World is a dragon paradise where every last dragon regardless of diet and environment belongs, because we don’t see their daily life there. And even if it somehow were, the dragons go because Toothless commands them to – literally, it emphasizes this in the script – and they can’t refuse an alpha’s command.
A paradise that you’re forced to go to and not allowed to leave isn’t a paradise. An underground cave, away from the wind and sun for the rest of your life, is not a paradise.
After a decade, it might just be a good idea
No, it won’t, because Hiccup’s new plan – the one THW insists is the best one – is to sit on his hands and wait for change, and after a decade, has made so little progress that his own children don’t understand dragons.
Let the people of Berk rest, and think, and try to come up with ways to change the world.
Good plan, except they don’t do that.
I think there’s no way the dragons will stay in the Hidden World forever.
Of fucking course not, because if they wanted to or were meant to stay there forever, they wouldn’t be living and breeding on the surface. The Light Fury, supposedly the purest dragon or whatever that means, is caught outside the Hidden World. They go because Toothless commands them to, and they have no say in the matter.
I think Toothless’s children will keep wanting to visit. Toothless and Hiccup will always be friends, and if Hiccup was ever in need I have no doubt that Toothless would be there in a heartbeat.
Cute. Too bad Dean says the epilogue was “a final joy ride” and not an indication that they’ll ever see each other again.
I know I’m being snippy and impatient, but this is the kind of thing I’m talking about, the thing I don’t have the time or energy to engage with. THW is a house made of toothpicks, and I’ve yet to hear a defense of it that didn’t amount to this…a wildly, factually incorrect stew of headcanons.
You’re more than entitled to that magical version of the film that exists nowhere but in peoples’ heads, but it doesn’t change the reality of what we actually got, or the utterly horrific mentality of the people who made it.
